How the Knicks’ fingerprints are all over these NBA Finals

There are lines through the Knicks to the 2024 NBA Finals. Some are straightforward, others zigzag.

But if you look at the Celtics and the Mavericks — who face off in Game 1 on Thursday — the roster constructions wouldn’t be possible without moves involving James Dolan’s squad.

Let me explain with four storylines that provide Knicks fans some connection to the NBA Finals, even if it won’t make you feel better about watching it.

The draft pick

For the Mavericks, it was $750,000 well spent and possibly revenge for the Jalen Brunson tampering.

For the Knicks, it was a reminder that unprotected picks are undoubtedly valuable.

A season ago, the Mavericks blatantly tanked their last two regular-season games to avoid any possibility of the playoffs. It was an executive decision.

Dallas would only keep its first rounder if it fell in the top 10 and believed the play-in tournament wasn’t a realistic avenue toward a championship. So the Mavericks prioritized their pick — which is still owed to the Knicks as the final payment of the Kristaps Porzingis trade — and sat their best players, including Luka Doncic (he was benched after the first quarter of the second-to-last game), to secure their place among the lottery teams.

Adam Silver, who created the play-in tournament and touted its tanking deterrence, looked like a fool. He responded with a $750,000 fine for the Mavericks.

Mark Cuban briefly looked silly when the Heat emerged from the play-in last year to reach the NBA Finals. If Jimmy Butler could do it, why couldn’t Doncic? But the Heat were bombed in the Finals by the Nuggets, then eliminated quickly in the first round this year after scraping through the play-in. Now it’s impossible to argue against Dallas’ tanking strategy.

The Mavericks used the No. 12 overall pick on Dereck Lively II, the center from Duke who is already an integral part of their playoff rotation.

And though the last Porzingis draft pick will convey to the Knicks next month, the Mavericks won 50 games this season, so it falls to No. 25 — well below the value if Dallas hadn’t tanked.

Every NBA team would pay $750,000 to move up from 25th to 12th in the draft.

The Brunson-Kyrie swap 

If the Knicks hadn’t tampered and given Brunson a free-agency offer he couldn’t refuse, there’s no way Kyrie Irving ends up in Dallas.

Trading with the Nets for Irving last year — when the point guard was considered a locker-room-devouring plague — was an attempt to compensate for the loss of Brunson.

It looked like a disaster last season, when the Mavericks fell from the 2022 conference finals to the 2023 draft lottery. But then Irving found his basketball groove this season and avoided espousing his third-eye theories.

Knicks fans certainly don’t feel bad about how this turned out. Brunson is succeeding in NYC in ways Irving failed.

Relinquishing a 2025 second-round pick to the NBA for Brunson tampering is one of the best swaps in franchise history.

Kristaps Porzingis 

I’m not going to rehash the whole KP-Knicks ordeal. There will be time during the Finals. Let’s just say he was the savior until he wasn’t.

Five years and three teams later, Porzingis is a member of the Celtics and an enemy of the Mavericks. He’s also the biggest X-factor of the Finals after missing 10 straight games with a calf injury.

The Porzingis throughline is the Knicks, the franchise that drafted him fourth overall in Phil Jackson’s best move (that’s a low bar). He was traded from New York to Dallas — where he butted heads with Doncic — and suddenly became underrated.

The Celtics are his redemption story, similar to how the Mavericks function for Irving. Only one can win.

And if Porzingis pulls it off, he would be the highest Knicks draft pick to win a title since Bill Cartwright (who won three with the Bulls).

The others

There are four other former Knicks in the NBA Finals. Let’s play catch-up:

Luke Kornet (Celtics): Entered the NBA on a two-way contract with the Knicks and latched on despite his athletic limitations. He’s been Boston’s backup center with Porzingis out. A nice underdog story.

Svi Mykhailiuk (Celtics): The Ukrainian didn’t play much with the Knicks and he’s not playing much with Boston.

Tim Hardaway Jr. (Mavericks): Always a streaky scorer (you remember, Knicks fans), Hardaway Jr. has been in and out of the rotation in the playoffs while collecting DNPs in the past three games.

Jason Kidd (Mavericks): Played his final NBA season with the Knicks and was a finalist to take their coaching job before Tom Thibodeau signed in 2020. Now he’s trying to become the first Hall of Fame player to coach a team to a championship since KC Jones.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Remember Rokas Jokubaitis?

He was drafted 34th overall by the Knicks in 2021, one spot ahead of Herb Jones (a legit NBA starter for the Pelicans) and two before Miles McBride (no introduction needed for Knicks fans).

Jokubaitis, a 23-year-old guard, has been stashed in Europe and just completed his third season with FC Barcelona, though his role diminished with the arrival of longtime NBA point guard Ricky Rubio.

Jokubaitis played three games for the Knicks in the 2021 Summer League, averaging 6.3 points on 70% shooting in less than 10 minutes per game. In 2022, he missed Summer League after undergoing ear surgery. Last year, he could have played in Summer League before the FIBA World Cup, but there wasn’t much appetite for Vegas with the Knicks rostering a glut of guards (they had just added Donte DiVincenzo to Jalen Brunson, Immanuel Quickley, Quentin Grimes and McBride).

“There is no room for Rokas on the Knicks roster,” his agent, Sarunas Broga, told me at the time, “therefore playing Summer League doesn’t make much sense.”

So what about this year? Jokubaitis “will strongly consider” the Summer League, according to Broga, but availability is contingent on his national team, Lithuania, qualifying for the Olympics.

“If Lithuania makes it to the Olympic Games in Paris, unfortunately, Rokas won’t be able to attend NBA Summer League,” Broga told Sports+. “Otherwise, Rokas will strongly consider taking part.”

Either way, Jokubaitis will play for Lithuania at the Olympic qualifiers in Puerto Rico from July 2-7. The Summer League opener is slated for July 12, and typically teams gather a couple days prior for practice.

So if you want to see Jokubaitis in Vegas, you’ll be rooting against Lithuania in Puerto Rico. He’s also reportedly unlikely to return to Barcelona next season, and is garnering interest from Lithuanian club Zalgiris Kaunas if a move to the NBA doesn’t happen.

Jokubaitis is the only draft pick by Leon Rose who hasn’t played for the Knicks. The others were Obi Toppin, Quickley, Grimes, McBride, Jericho Sims and Trevor Keels.

Of those players, only McBride and Sims remain on the roster.

Value proposition

Imagine a workplace where all salaries are known.

And then imagine your salary is so low, your better compensated co-workers make fun of you.

That’s Deuce McBride, who was brought up on the “Roommates Show” podcast when host Jalen Brunson asked whether Donte DiVincenzo ($50 million over four years) had the most team-friendly contract in the league.

“Nah,” co-host Josh Hart replied. “Deuce.”

It reminded Brunson.

“Oh sh–, Deuce,” Brunson said with a laugh.

“Shout out my dog Deuce,” Hart added. “He’s out there hooping, playoff minutes, getting about 3 [million].”

McBride signed a three-year, $13 million extension last season, just before he entered the rotation and became an important piece of the Knicks’ run to the conference semis. He earned $1.8 million last season, which ranked 12th on the Knicks despite him finishing fifth in playoff minutes.

Brunson also gave an update on his broken right hand, a week after undergoing surgery.

“I’ve started rehab a little bit,” the point guard said on the podcast. “I’m obviously limited in things I can do. I’m getting movement in my hand already. But I can’t open things. I can’t do normal things. It sucks. It really does suck. I do everything right-handed besides basketball. … I’m the type of person who will take two weeks off and then start working out again. Usually. Now I have to take a little bit more time off because I can’t shoot and stuff. But I’ll start doing things relatively soon. I have clearance that I can bike and sweat. So I don’t have to worry about that. But I got some time. I’ll be all right. I’ll figure it out.”